Zen / Mahayana

The Mahayana tradition of Buddhism, of which Zen is an important expression (along with Chinese Chan and Korean Soen), arose sometime around the first century C.E. in South India and spread throughout Asia. It is characterized by the ideal of the bodhisattva: the compassionate being whose desire for enlightenment isn’t an individual quest but includes all other sentient beings as well.

Selected Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn

Here is the inimitable Zen Master Seung Sahn up close and personal—in selections from the correspondence that was one of his primary modes of teaching. Seung Sahn received hundreds of letters per month, each of which he answered personally, and… Read More

Zen Comments on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment

Complete Enlightenment is the first authoritative translation and commentary on The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, a central text that shaped the development of East Asian Buddhism and Ch'an (Chinese Zen). The text… Read More

With Hui-neng's Commentary on the Diamond Sutra

Hui-neng (638713) is perhaps the most beloved and respected figure in Zen Buddhism. An illiterate woodcutter who attained enlightenment in a flash, he became the Sixth Patriarch of Chinese Zen, and is regarded as the founder of the "Sudden Enlightenment"… Read More

Zen Journals 1969-1982

In August 1968, naturalist-explorer Peter Matthiessen returned from Africa to his home in Sagaponack, Long Island, to find three Zen masters in his driveway—guests of his wife, a new student of Zen. Thirteen years later, Matthiessen was ordained a Buddhist… Read More

A Practical and Spiritual Guide

To live life fully and die serenely—surely we all share these goals, so inextricably entwined. Yet a spiritual dimension is too often lacking in the attitudes, circumstances, and rites of death in modern society. Kapleau explores the subject of death… Read More

The Compass of Zen is a simple, exhaustive—and often hilarious—presentation of the essence of Zen by a modern Zen Master of considerable renown. In his many years of teaching throughout the world, the Korean-born Zen Master Seung Sahn has… Read More

And Selected Haiku

Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), along with Basho and Buson, is considered one of the three greatest haiku poets of Japan, known for his attention to poignant detail and his playful sense of humor. Issa's most-loved work, The Spring of My… Read More

For all its emphasis on the direct experience of insight without reliance on the products of the intellect, the Zen tradition has created a huge body of writings. Of this cast literature, the writings associated with the so-called Five Houses… Read More

Zen Buddhism emerged in China some fifteen centuries ago and remained the most dynamic and influential spiritual movement in Asia for more than a millennium. Though the teachings of the first Zen masters are sometimes considered innovation, they were actually… Read More

The Heart of Zen

Kensho is the transformative glimpse of the true nature of all things. It is an experience so crucial in Zen practice that it is sometimes compared to finding an inexhaustible treasure because it reveals the potential that exists in each… Read More

Berkeley, LSD, Two Zen Masters, and a Life on the Dharma Trail

This frank account by a longtime Zen student looks back over a journey that began in Berkeley in the heady sixties when the author experimented with psychedelics and started to study with Suzuki Roshi, who encouraged his students to find… Read More

The Zen Teachings of Maurine Stuart

Maurine Stuart (19221990) was one of a select group of students on the leading edge of Buddhism in America: a woman who became a Zen master. In this book, she draws on down-to-earth Zen stories, her friendships with Japanese Zen… Read More

A Commentary on Zen Master Dogen's Genjokoan

Written by the founder of Japanese Zen, Eihei Dogen (1200-1253), the Genjokoan is often considered to be the key text within Dogen's masterwork, Shobogenzo. The Genjokoan addresses in terse and poetic language many of the perennial concerns… Read More

Jim Harrison's popular novels represent only part of his literary output—he has also been widely acclaimed for the "renegade genius" of his powerful, expressive verse, collected in several books such as The Theory and Practice of Rivers and Other… Read More

On Buddhism and Zen

Dream Conversations is a collection of a renowned Japanese master's written replies to questions about the true nature of Zen. In short, simply worded teachings, Muso Kokushi (1275-1351), also known as Muso Soseki, exposes common misconceptions with unprecedented clarity,… Read More